Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State

This time, bully ended up sadder Budweiser

“Typically, the inequality of economic power between corporation and parodist determines who prevails in trademark infringement lawsuits…. The weaker party — the parodist — is effectively censored and denied due process.

“An unlikely victor against a trademark bully was Michael Berard, who in 1987 was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Berard had designed a T-shirt [depicting] a beer can with a red, white and blue label — think Budweiser — but instead of grandiose references to great hops and barley, Berard substituted… ‘Myrtle Beach Contains the Choicest Surf, Sun and Sand.’ Instead of ‘This Bud’s for You,’ the T-shirt read ‘This Beach is for You.’

“On appeal the judges found no likelihood consumers would falsely believe Bud had sanctioned the T-shirts…. Anheuser-Busch lost. But if Berard had known about the ‘Mutant of Omaha’ ruling [squelching a 1983 T-shirt protesting the nuclear arms race], he might never have dared to produce his innocuous T-shirt.”